


How the Stars Fade

by interlude



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s05e04 The End, M/M, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interlude/pseuds/interlude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The topic he intends to speak on is not a simple one; it is not necessarily a happy one, either, and as the former angel takes in the quiet clearing around them, he finds himself unwilling to break the silence with it.</p>
<p>There are words that need to be said, though. They have needed to be said for long time."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the end of days, Castiel takes the time to discuss his Fall and the reasons behind it with Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How the Stars Fade

“I don’t believe, to be quite honest, that God had any sway over me after I met you,” Castiel begins. He speaks softly, hesitant to destroy the rare tranquility that has settled on them. The topic he intends to speak on is not a simple one; it is not necessarily a happy one, either, and as the former angel takes in the quiet clearing around them, he finds himself unwilling to break the silence with it.

 

There are words that need to be said, though. They have needed to be said for long time.

 

Dean’s hair is as soft as it always is, if not a little dirtier; Castiel cards his fingers through it gently, with a reverence that has always been reserved for Dean alone.  “Well,” he amends himself, continuing, “certainly not much. A miniscule amount – the lingering influence of millennia spent following the plan and purpose laid out for me. But not enough to change my actions, or alter the course I found myself on after raising you from Hell.”

 

A bitter laugh breaks free, higher than normal, bordering on delirious. Sobriety creeps upon his senses, the foggy haze of medication slipping away from him. The effects of the pills he took a few hours ago are beginning to wear off, but camp is too far away and if Castiel doesn’t say these words now he’s afraid he never will.

 

Careful not to jostle Dean’s head where it lays in his lap, Castiel shifts to a more comfortable position. His fingers continue carding through Dean’s hair as he shakes his head. Matted hair falls across his forehead; it sticks to the sweat across his brow but brushing it away would mean removing his hands from where they rest on Dean’s cheek and head so he ignores it.

 

Dean stays silent. Castiel is glad for it.

 

“But how could He change my actions? After I found you to be so much brighter, so much closer, and so much more real to me than the orders that came from others’ lips? I never once met my father but through the mouths of my brothers - brothers who had taken it upon themselves to change orders to their liking and yet _you._ You were right there before me: real, close, corporal. I could see you. I could hear your requests and orders come from your own mouth and I could reach out and touch you if I so wished. You, Dean, were real.

 

I once thought that raising the Righteous Man from Hell would please my father. It was never meant to be a personal matter. I was never supposed to be particularly concerned with you after I had finished my task. Even now, I’m not sure how to explain what laying my hand upon your soul did; it’s a complex matter, all twisted and complicated and messy as I’ve found things involving humanity often are.”

 

A pause. Castiel licks his lips. They’re dry and chapped, and when he begins to speak again he grins widely, deliriously almost, and feels the bottom lip split down the middle with a sharp prick of pain.

“My brothers would tell me that your touch was poison; that it corrupted me to the point of impurity. That what once was whole and good had been torn apart by your influence, that I was so irrevocably transformed by your inherently sinful nature I could never hope to return to the being I once was. In a way, I suppose I might say this is true.”

 

He pulls his hand from Dean’s hair to lay a finger on his lips before the man can interrupt, touch light and gentle. “Shh, hear me out. It was true that I could not return to what – who – I was after meeting you. Meeting you was the turning point, you see. The catalyst to all that would follow in my story – the moment that would inevitably lead me to my own end. And how morbid that sounds. How poetic. I wonder if I might take up poetry. I am so often fascinated with your tortured human poets. I could write sonnets about the secrets of the universe, the fall from glory, the burning touch of a mortal man.”

 

It is a nice day. Often it surprises him that in the middle of the Apocalypse there can still be days like this, where the sun shines and the trees are in bloom. It was never Earth that Lucifer despised, only its inhabitants. If you could bring yourself to ignore the Croats and withered cities, the Earth could still be considered quite beautiful.

 

Castiel stares at the trees and the sky and images the poetry he could write on this: on the nature that has thrived when man could not, on the flowers that still bloom beautifully mere feet from him. On how he, a being once made of light, could now feel so ugly in their presence.

 

He is suddenly reminded of the man in his arms, imagines he can feel Dean’s irritated gaze on him and laughs – the kind that scratches at his throat and brings tears to his eyes. “I know. I know. I’m becoming distracted. Very easy to do as a human, I’ve discovered.” He shakes himself slightly, returning to his original point. “I don’t mean to say that meeting you was bad, that it was poisonous. I mean instead that, well. It was like this: I had once assumed I could see everything and suddenly was aware of my blind spots. The corruption of my brothers, the betrayal of my father. And all of it had been revealed to me by you.”

 

“For that, I don’t hate you. No matter where that truth led me, I don’t regret learning it. To live a lie without knowing is only ignorance. To live it once knowing better is cowardly.” Here he laughs again, pulling his bleeding lip in between his teeth to bite on it. The taste of copper fills his mouth; it’s almost as satisfying as the whiskey hidden under his bed.

 

This confession has taken too long. Dean will grow tired of his speech and leave, and then where would that leave him? With unspoken words rattling around inside his brain to drive him further towards insanity. If he hasn’t already reached it.

 

The hand on Dean’s face moves to his arm, stroking it gently. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I have never once regretted meeting you. Never. I regret some of the decisions you’ve made. I regret some of mine. I regret that I’ve had to watch you kill yourself slowly and I regret that I’ve followed in those footsteps. But never,” he looks down at Dean, into the eyes staring up at him, “have I regretted you.”

 

Dean doesn’t respond. Castiel doesn’t expect him to.

 

He cradles Dean’s head gently in his hands as he transfers it from his lap to the ground. For a moment he sits where he was, staring down at the man next to him – the man that he had given everything for.

 

“There is a prayer taught to children that I’ve grown rather fond of, though I can’t explain why. I think you know it: Now I lay me down to sleep,” he whispers, shifting to lie beside Dean on the grass. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” There is a pistol tucked in the back of his jeans. He struggles for a moment to pull it free. The metal is cool when it rests upon his temple.

 

“And if I die before I wake…”

 

He glances once more at Dean, at the lifeless eyes staring back at him, at the unnatural twist to his neck. “I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

 

The gunshot startles a nearby bird into flight.


End file.
